


the changeling

by kangeiko



Series: The Erinyes Cycle [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 01:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: Peggy has a decision to make (and no choice at all).





	the changeling

Her mother would be horrified, Peggy thinks. She presses a hand to her abdomen and tries to think logically, to consider her options. There are, really, only three.

The first option is the one she would dearly love to pick. Steve would come striding back into the camp, flushed from victory and ruddy with the cold, and he would gather her up in his arms and kiss her. And she would tell him what the situation was, and - well, she has faith in him. He wouldn’t hesitate. They would be wed in a little church, a ramshackle ruin with half the belltower missing, and the priest would be Catholic rather than Protestant (because it’s France, because Steve is a good Catholic boy, and because Peggy doesn’t have enough faith left to care one way or the other). They would both be in uniform, and Peggy would be holding a bouquet of wilting wildflowers, and it would be perfect, perfect, perfect.

When their child is born seven months later in a field hospital, Dum Dum would laugh and count backwards too loud, and Steve would blush to the very tips of his ears and try to stammer out an explanation or an excuse. 

James Michael Rogers will have his father’s eyes, and he will be the darling of the regiment.

Peggy can see the war stretch out before her, decades of ruin and death and sins against what it means to be human, and she will hold her son to her chest and thank the God she doesn’t believe in that she has this one perfect miracle, this one talisman against the the darkness.

(It is enough, she will think.)

Braced against the white porcelain of the little sink, Peggy closes her eyes and imagines the small hand in hers, and Steve’s arms around them both, and Steve’s smile on her son’s face. And she is _happy._

This is what should happen. 

(And with Steve there, it happens. In some universe, in some version of reality, that is what happens, she is sure. No universe would be cruel enough to deny her forever.)

 _“We’ll have the band play something slow,”_ Steve’s voice says, heavy with static and distance. He is leaving her further behind with each word, and there is nothing that Peggy can do to stop it, to bind him to her. _“I’d hate to step on your -”_

*

_Steven Michael Carter will be blonde and blue-eyed, and there will be three attempts to kidnap the pregnant Peggy before he is even born. Four attempts on him in his first year. Dum Dum and Gabe will die in the last of those, laying down covering fire so that Peggy can escape, her son clasped to her chest, Hydra in pursuit._

_By the time he is two years old, Steven will have learned to always wait for his mother to clear the room before he ventures anywhere._

_He will not live to see his third birthday._

*

The second option has no name. Peggy doesn’t want it, cannot imagine it. Perhaps, if it had been anyone else’s child…

She would walk out one evening, sneaking into the nearby village to ask for the midwife. (She knows better than to speak to the doctor about it; the last thing she needs is to be arrested.)

She would take the herbs in the privacy of her own tent, and then bleed repeatedly through the bandages she will stuff in her sanitary belt. 

(The camp doctor - who would know perfectly well what she has done - would tell Colonel Phillips that she has dysentery.)

*

_Steven Grant Rogers will die in the European theatre without any issue or surviving family._

_Margaret Carter will survive the war._

*

The third option…

She does not understand how it has come to this.

“I know someone,” Dum Dum says, and closes his hand over hers. “They’re making their way across from Italy, headed to America. They're a good family, well-off, and they have relatives waiting for them in New York. The papers would be easy, Peg, and no one need ever know.”

She swallows. “Are they good people? Are they... kind?”

Because that is the deal-breaker for her. She cannot protect Steve’s child herself, not when everyone will know that Steve is the father, not when Hydra will want that child for itself. But she will not simply give the child away and hope for the best. (She owes Steve more than that.) No, if she is doing this, she has to be sure.

Dum Dum smiles sadly at her. “They’re good people, Peg. I swear to you. They’ll love that little one like their own. And… maybe, if they move to America, you could maybe…” Go there as well, he does not say, but Peggy hears him all the same.

She considers it. There is the war, of course; she cannot leave immediately. But perhaps it is best if she doesn’t. Perhaps a gap of a few years would be best. That would give them a chance to establish a life, to set themselves up. And she could then, later on, gradually move into their orbit. Gently, quietly. Aunt Peg.

(She’d see Steve’s child grow up, see baby thrive and live and love and laugh. And no one would know. No one would paint a target on her child’s back.)

“Let me meet them,” she says tremulously, her hand pressed over the gentle swell of her abdomen. “I need to be sure.”

*

_Margaret Carter will give birth to a little girl in a small village in southern France. No one will know who she is, and no one will know the small group that accompany her and watch over her as she labours. One man - large, muscular - answering to the name of Dum Dum, will be by the midwife’s side to take the child from Peggy and cut the cord. His hands will be sure and capable, and Peggy will be too weak to do much except thank him and slump back down the bed, exhausted._

_Dum Dum will place the baby at Peggy’s breast, and will wash his hands carefully. He will go outside, and beckon forward a small, dark woman waiting anxiously, her husband’s arms around her._

_“You can go in,” Dum Dum will say in the tone of a mourner, and the woman will tiptoe inside the room. Her eyes will go immediately to the exhausted form of Peggy, the child curled up on her chest._

_“Is that…”_

_“Your daughter,” Peggy will say, her speech sleep-slurred. She will force her eyes open, and look down at the tiny squashed face, and the tuft of blonde hair on the baby’s head. The baby will blink up at her and yawn. “What will you call her?”_

_The woman will reach out. After a moment, Peggy will surrender her burden, willing her hands to let go. It will hurt worse than hearing Steve’s final words. It will hurt worse than anything else in her life, things lived and things yet to be lived._

_(Except one night, many years later.)_

_The woman will look down at the little girl cradled in her arms, and she will smile. “Maria,” she will say. “Her name is Maria.”_

*

fin

**Author's Note:**

> Although I love pretty much all depictions of Peggy as Tony's mother, it did strike me that there is a sizable age difference between Howard Stark and Maria Carbonell, and so, in theory, this is equally possible (and I hadn't seen anyone write it before) - and of course makes everything in CW a million times worse for basically everyone concerned, so why not? 
> 
> (Bonus points for the serum being the reason that Tony survived heart surgery in Afghanistan, and him inheriting Peggy's ability to MacGyver just about anything.)
> 
> (Why yes, I am working on depressing little ficlets instead of my WIPs, why do you ask?)


End file.
